DaRon Holmes’ game, like his stat line, continues to expand. He’s increasingly comfortable with shooting from the perimeter. (Press Pros Feature Photos)
With a 15-2 record and tied for the Atlantic 10 Conference lead with a 5-0 record, the University of Dayton basketball team tries Tuesday to avoid the dangers of a trap game in the dinky LaSalle game. The Explorers are 1-4 in the A-10 and are on a four-game losing streak.
Dayton, OH — What the University of Dayton basketball team is about to encounter is like an appendectomy without anaethesia.
It is a basketball game Tuesday night in Philadelphia against LaSalle in Tom Gola Arena.
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Calling the place an arena is like calling a pond an ocean. The place seats only 3,400.
And although it was built in 1998, it looks as if it was built when explorer Robert de la Salle discovered Louisiana and claimed it for France.
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It is called a mult-purpose facility but basketball and dog shows are about all that fit, if the dogs are small poodles.
On paper, the Flyers, 15-2 and 5-0 in the Atlantic 10 Conference, should tear up the Explorers (10-8, 1-4). LaSalle’s only A10 win was 81-76 over Fordham.
They’ve lost to George Mason, UMass, VCU and Saint Joseph’s. Of their nine non-conference wins, there isn’t a noteworthy one in the bunch — Drexel, Bucknell, Southern Indiana, Coppin State, Penn, Loyola (Md.), Lafayette, Rosemont.
But the next time a game is won on paper will be the first time. It is won on wood and that Gola wood hasn’t been an easy assignment for the Flyers.
And it would be easy for the Flyers to look up, past and around LaSalle to Saturday’s game at Richmond. The Flyers and Spiders are tied atop the A10 at 5-0. If both win Tuesday, the game willl be an argument for first place.
Richmond meets George Washington on Wednesday.
The Flyers leaped from 21st to 16th in the Associated Press poll this week, so there is also that to protect and to improve upon.
So what will happen at LaSalle, what will the Explorers try to do to stop UD’s DaRon Holmes II, who over the last three games has been hotter than an August solar pane in Goodyear, AZ., Holmes’ hometown.
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He has put the Flyers on his broad shoulders and carried them 94 feet back-and-forth for 40 minutes a night. And he is on monotonous path. He was named Atlantic 10 Player of the Week for his two performances last week He has now won the award three times this month.
He leads the Atlantic 10 in scoring at 19.5 points a game and is in the top five in rebounding at 7.6 a game.
And his career credentials keep expanding at a quick rate.
Javon Bennett broke his three-point slump on Saturday, hitting 4 of 5 shots from range.
The 6-foot-10 junior with the ever-present head band and curled locks has started 86 games. He has scored in double digits 71 times, has scored 20 or more points 31 times, had recorded double digits in rebounds 21 times and has put together 21 double-doubles.
On Saturday, with the Flyers fully in control, UD coach Anthony Grant benched Holmes with 14 minutes left in the game and let him be a sideline cheerleader for the rest of the game.
An unexpected rest period, an unexpected bonus for Holmes after he took over the previous two games and nearly won both games by himself.
“That was pretty cool and it was neat to see my teammates out there,” said Holmes. “It’s not about (my) scoring. I’ve been here, my third year, so I understand that I want to win, we want to win, I want to get to March and play together. There is no better feeling than that.”
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Holmes expects hand-to-hand combat at LaSalle and it isn’t just about opposing teams double-teaming and triple-teaming him and using everything but taped blackjacks on him under the basket.
“You have to lock in against conference teams because they kinda know how we play, so it is a lot more challenging than it might seem,” said Holmes. “Yes, in reality they know how we play.
“We have to be ready and prepare the right way for this game,” he added. “This games are very important and it’s all about our habits. We gotta go to practice and lock in. Our goal is to win the game. We don’t know how it’s going to happen, but we’re going to do it. We just have to play hard.”
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Point guard Javon Bennett, who had been languishing in a three-point shooting slump, popped loose Saturday for 22 points on 8 of 9 shooting, 4 of 5 on three-pointers.
As a transfer from Merrimack, when the Flyers hit the road he is playing in unfamiliar gyms, coliseums and arenas.
“I have to level-headed against all these new teams,” he said. “Deuce (Holmes), Kobe Elvis and Koby Brea have played these teams multiple times. I’ll go off their lead, how they play. Like Deuce said, we just gotta lock in for these games.”
Despite his season-long floor dominance, he can buckle any swash, Holmes realizes that it is like what Momma says, “Sometimes there will be days like this, there will days like this.”
Those days, or the day, when Holmes doesn’t score, doesn’t rebound, suffers a rare off day.
That’s a day Elvis, Brea, Bennett, Nate Santo and/or Enoch Cheeks must emerge front and center.
And this is the humble Holmes talking, “A lot of us have had great games and bad games, but you have to be able to flush them and keep our heads in a straight line.
“There might be a game where I don’t have the best game but I have to go out there and do what I can to help my team win,” he said. “And that’s what we all have to understand.”
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